He spent a short period of military service as a sergeant during World War I. Woodard married Harriet Mead in May 1920 and graduated from Union Theological Seminary in 1921.
He remained in Japan working with the military in a variety of roles related to the Religious Juridical Persons Law, until the end of the Allied occupation in 1952, when he returned to the States.
[4][5][6][7] The book was translated into Japanese as 天皇と神道 : GHQの宗教政策 / Tennō to Shintō : GHQ no shūkyō seisaku.
[8] In 1975, WE Skillend writing in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Affairs said "No student of Japanese religion during the years since the war can fail to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Mr. Woodard. "
[9] A Companion to Japanese History, said in 2007 that "Woodard's 1972 study remains the standard work on Japan's religious reformation ".